


make you the perfect morning

by Spaghettoi



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Gen, is this technically RPF?, this is a mess and i hate it here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25140712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spaghettoi/pseuds/Spaghettoi
Summary: The pressure is on him tonight, as with Khio, as with the lovely, sickly-sweet new victor. He's still the Capitol's fresh-faced recruit, even if said face stays firmly hidden behind an unpeelable mask. Khio is still their snarky presenter, and the new girl is still too fresh to get a read on. She's enticing in that way, he supposes, in pretty false facades and hidden fangs. He's seen the way the Capitol people sink their teeth into her, desperate for anything they can get, uncaring of the consequences.Of the sickly garden, she's the shiniest, freshest fruit they have. It's unsurprising she holds their intrigue.--don't fucking ask
Comments: 20
Kudos: 15





	make you the perfect morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KasunySAD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KasunySAD/gifts), [Khio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khio/gifts), [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts), [FizzyOrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FizzyOrange/gifts), [SeCrFiDr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeCrFiDr/gifts), [everythingFangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/gifts).



> if you're looking for real VT, you're in the wrong fucking place  
> blame ollie for this shit  
> title snatched from "the bug collector" by haley heynderickx cause brain doesn't work, clearly, as i'm posting /this/

"You'll be fine," Khio says, looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere else. "Just say something nice."

Ghet's not sure he knows how to do that anymore.

If anything, he's thankful they've allowed him the mask again. It fastens around his head with two clasps, brown hair curled and perfectly messy around it. The thin black veiling around his face beneath it makes even the skin still visible through the gap pitch black and unreadable. Khio doesn't know where to look. When Ghet doesn't answer him, he makes an uncomfortable noise, pats his shoulder, and leaves him to his own devices. 

This is the first Victor's Welcome he's done. It won't be the last. 

The victor this year is a funny one. He doesn't think he's ever seen one with branding so funky. He's the baby of the floor, and he knows it, and sometimes it hurts to realize he likely won't have their consideration the way he did. It'll go to an all-too-put-together 17-year-old with green thumbs and a silver tongue.

Plant branding isn't particularly unusual. The ethereality of her is what gets him. He hasn't seen her in person yet, altogether too nervous to confront an out of place variable, and she hasn't seemed interested, anyway.

("She's scared," Kat says over dinner. "That's pretty normal. You were scared, too."

"Was not," Ghet protests. Havok throws them an annoyed glare. "You just talk way too fucking much."

Kat wheezes. "She'll come out eventually," she starts, and the fire suddenly burning in her eyes is one that makes Khio freeze and Havok suppress a laugh, "can't ignore me forever." 

"She absolutely can."

"Well, she won't. Can't resist this." She gestures to herself, both-handed, and it's then that Havok finally bursts into fitful laughter.

And now they wait, 6 wide around an elevator, to go to an event none of them care to see.

Oh, well. First time for everything.)

"You okay, kid?" Lanie asks from behind him, laying a firm hand on his shoulder. He jumps at the sudden weight. Their arm is painted black, fingers filed into short, dulled claws.

"Just fine," he manages, craning his neck to look at them. They grin, slightly predatory behind the mandibles. 

"I'm proud of you," they say, throwing a lazy punch against his bicep. Ghet is surprised to find that they probably mean it. They move to stand beside Havok as the elevator dings, making small conversation under their breath; Ghet doesn't miss the way Havok's gaze flickers to him.

He's always noticed things. Tends to, anyway. And the eyes burning holes into him are anything but subtle.

The pressure is on him tonight, as with Khio, as with the lovely, sickly-sweet new victor. He's still the Capitol's fresh-faced recruit, even if said face stays firmly hidden behind an unpeelable mask. Khio is still their snarky presenter, and the new girl is still too fresh to get a read on. She's enticing in that way, he supposes, in pretty false facades and hidden fangs. He's seen the way the Capitol people sink their teeth into her, desperate for anything they can get, uncaring of the consequences. 

Of the sickly garden, she's the shiniest, freshest fruit they have. It's unsurprising she holds their intrigue. 

The elevator dings again, and when Ghet takes a moment to look, he finds the floor 2 thinner and 1 already receding. That's Khio, Kat, and Lanie. The three he feels he truly knows.

Fizz stands alone. She's shrouded in orange, yet another unsurprising thing of note, and her dress flutters around her shoulders and seems to hover just above the ground, layer upon layer of shimmering, airy tulle. The pearls bubble up into the bodice of the gown, coating her ribcage in cream, each stone catching the light individually. The capelet around her shoulders is so bright it's nearly hard to look at, and comes up around her neck in a choke. 

She's held on a surprisingly tight leash for a victor so well received, especially with branding that personifies sugar and seems to bloat and, well, fizz. 

Funny. Funny, funny, funny, the juxtaposition is, and funny the Capitol must think they are.

The three of them, the most recent and arguably the most unwilling, left to practically their own devices. The peacekeepers aren't exactly subtle, however, and when Fizz shifts, gown swimming around her waist and spilling across the marbled floor, none of them miss the way hands move to guns.

Havok, too, stands alone. The overcoat of the suit he wears lets out curls of smoke. Dark makeup, coating the sides of his face, red that spills from his iris' and down his cheeks to drip off of his chin. In place of the traditional, phony horns he normally bears, his crown is a grease-smeared gold and comes up in a split ring around the top of his head. He looks pissed as hell, Ghet notes with distaste, and for all Ghet's own weariness of the guy, he finds he can't blame him. 

The elevator. Again. Fizz leaves with a mocking bow, sweeping low to the ground against her skirt as the doors shut her away. Havok sets his jaw, shoves his hands in his pockets, and shifts his weight from right to left foot. A near imperceptible lean in Ghet's direction. And then he is still, eyes set on the elevator doors.

Ghet finds that he's much more nervous than he thought he was.

He fidgets a tassel from one of the many layers thrown across his shoulders. Tries to ignore the pounding of his heart, the slight heat radiating from the victor stood beside him, and wills himself to breathe.

There's a victor. They will have to welcome her. She's somewhere behind them, held in a room as they wait for the rest of them to leave. Ghet will be courteous, and he will be sweet, and he will talk like they always seem to make him.

(Sometimes he finds he doesn't mind it. At the Summer Solstice, they barely had to prod him to make the words spill. Other times they shove their hands down his throat and pull them from his esophagus themselves. Leave his mouth bloody as they cut themselves free.

He gets the feeling that tonight will be more of the latter.)

The elevator, just one more time. Havok enters with a blistering confidence, one that Ghet surprises himself by identifying as fake, and sneers at the peacekeeper whose fingers dance against their gun. His teeth are sharp. This should not be as startling as it is. 

And Ghet is alone again.

No time for this. He finds himself shrinking into the layers and tries to listen to anything but the rustle of fabric and the clicking of peacekeeper armor against itself and his own wild, rapid breathing. He finds that he can't. There is no noise beyond this room, nothing to indicate another soul. No notion of the new girl at all. 

When the elevator comes for him, the peacekeepers do not move. He's not seen as a threat here. 

He nearly wishes he was.

\--

Whatever he was expecting, this is not it. 

The woman who comes down from behind the curtain looks anything but false. The greenery strewn in her hair is alive, rife with plant life and plump, purple berries. Her makeup is soft and shines gold in the light.

Compared to the rest of them, she looks tame.

Of course, if he looks harder, it’s easy to see the cracks. Her sclera, the most obvious, are black, and her pupils are slits. The fabric of her skirts are ripped and worn near the bottom, green withering at the edges. 

And the snake. Can’t forget that fucking monster.

It winds around her waist, a long, black thing with fangs that stick out of its mouth. Clearly modified. It wraps once, twice, thrice around her ribcage and settles its head at her hip like a living, venomous belt. She somehow seems unconcerned of its existence.

( _They watch the games. There’s no way they can’t. And when the snake bites her wrist and leaves her doubled over, chest heaving, tears soaking down her face and sizzling against the unforgivingly perfect soil, they all watch with a sickened fascination. She gets no sponsors. When the delirium finally overtakes her, leaving her a writhing, giggling mess who can barely breathe, Ghet is hit with a guilty relief. It should be worse like this. It isn’t._

Tonight, a thin, silver cord makes its home there instead. He wonders if the two, venomous pinpricks left any scar. Wonders if the Capitol left them there as a twisted rite of passage. He finds that, unnervingly, he doesn’t know the answer.)

Khio steps up. Taps at the microphone. The crowd looks just as pleased with him as ever, and he allows a closed-lip grin as he waits for them to quiet, one hand held up in a culling gesture. 

“EverythingFangirl,” he says. The grin he offers is plastic and wide. “As your fellow Victors, we congratulate you. Together, we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves, and you have the honor of joining us.”

His words are lovely and mechanical. Easy. They should be, at least, should cause no harm, but she winces. The freshest victor lets a real, visible wince cross her face. 

Ghet feels his heart sink.

“We welcome you to our family, ‘E-F’,” he says, and someone out in the crowd lets out a hoot.

And with a single repositioning of his feet, Khiori hits the backburner. In his place stands Khio, face graced with a devilish grin.

“E-F, you’re a heathen,” he says, and stands there, pleased by his own performance. “You’re a heathen, and I get the unfortunate feeling you’ll fit in just right with the rest of these idiots.”

She grins. Khio winks at her. Ghet could laugh at the way the cameras jump to Katea’s exaggeratedly outraged face.

(Then again, maybe not. He can never quite tell with Kat, but something about the anger in her face that he can see from his periphery tells him it’s not quite fake.)

He steps back, offers a hand to Katea, and allows himself a seat at everythingFangirl’s right. Katea’s parasol bounces behind her shoulders as she lets one hand rest against the podium. 

“EverythingFangirl,” she spits, and the crowd lets out a low rumble of amusement. “Don’t you _dare_ get any fuckin’ ideas.” 

The cameras flick to the girl's face, who looks startled out of her mind. 

Kat smiles at her, surprisingly sharkish for the whole jellyfish theme, before rocking back on her heels. It’s like a switch flips. “With that in mind, I’d like to offer you my hand in marriage. Should you choose to accept, which I highly recommend, the wedding is on Wednesday. You gotta decide on cream or eggshells for the napkins as soon as possible, okay dear?” 

The audience _screams._ Kat offers a kiss, a curtsey, and saunters into the seat beside Khio, draping her arm over his shoulders. 

Lanie. They glare at the audience, and Ghet finds himself fixated on the way their wings shimmer under the stage lights. 

“EverythingFangirl,” they start, voice delicate, eyes anything but. “Your games were interesting to me. For your victory, I congratulate you. For your life here, I pray to the Solstices you can get away from Kat.”

A burble of laughter, and then they’re already sweeping away, a flurry of wings and snapping mandibles and glinting, multichrome greens. 

When Fizz sweeps onstage, a hush falls over the group of them.

Ghet’s mind falls back to his own welcome, to her calculating gaze, to her thin, wry smile and the sweet, carbonated smell that rolled off of her as she sat at his right. Nice, yes, but guarded, and altogether unreadable.

She seems much of the same tonight. “EverythingFangirl, your kindness is inspiring,” she says, and Ghet’s eyes sweep involuntarily to the murmuring group of peacekeepers. “I look forward to the life you will bring to Floor Five.”

The audience offers a surprised, polite clap. Fizz holds up a perfectly manicured hand and waits for the quiet to settle again.

“I hope that you find happiness here, dearie. We welcome you with open arms.” And as if to make a show of it, she stretches her own out, bows low to the floor like she did in the elevator, and slips off of the stage as the crowd roars.

Havok looks much like a storm cloud. The anger in his eyes is far too clearly false, but it doesn’t seem that any of them care; he stands stiff, smoke still rolling off of him in waves, seemingly oblivious to the red that continues to seep down his face.

“EverythingFangirl, your competence is admirable,” he starts, and huffs in annoyance at his own words. “I look forward to some, uh, age-appropriate company.” His eyes scan through the group of victors, resting on Khio’s face for a bit longer than necessary and skipping Kat entirely. That superiority complex never does leave, does it? Not when it’s what allowed him to survive in the first place. 

The crowd is uncertainly, and expectantly, silent. Havok shuffles, discomfort palpable, before he clears his throat.

“I hope we will get along,” he grits finally, and something in it makes Ghet think it’s scripted. “Otherwise, I fear you won’t have a very good year.”

WreakingHavok, malevolent God with a bit of a temper issue, steps off of the stage heavy-footed. The crowd mutters and offers him only hesitant smatterings of applause.

And it’s him.

The lights feel a lot brighter when it’s just him alone.

He should have planned this. He didn’t, though, and when he finds Khio’s eyes, he offers only a nervous, encouraging smile. 

“EverythingFangirl,” he says, voice shaking over the syllables. His fingers nervously find the tassel again, running through the soft threads as he swallows. 

“EverythingFangirl,” he tries again. His voice is surprisingly strong. “I look forward to spending the year with you. I thought your games were wonderful, if I’m being completely honest-- a real show of your sportsmanship and determination. You seem a wonderful person.”

Khiori’s smile teeters off of his face, replaced with widening eyes and an edgy frown. Ghet ignores this, ignores the bored exhale of Katea, ignores the whitening knuckles of WreakingHavok, and keeps talking.

And talking. And talking.

They don’t stop him. Maybe that’s the worst part. The speech picks up, talking at a fever pace with his voice pitched up a few octaves, spilling every word that floods his mind out into the ballroom until the audience is swimming and drowning beneath the waves. They tear at his throat, run it raw and ragged, and he keeps going until he’s short of breath.The mask certainly isn’t helping, choking him of fresh air but amplifying his voice, leaving him feeling empty; hollow of words and crushingly devoid of oxygen.

When he takes an exhausted step back, cutting off in the middle of a sentence, he catches the eyes of the girl again.

She’s smiling at him. A real smile that reads like awe, and when he forces himself back up to the podium, fingers curling against the veneer, it’s with a flattered red face behind a white mask and a renewed vigor.

“Dear, I think we’ll get along well,” he says, hoping his grin translates into his words. “You seem a lovely lady. I think you’ll have a lovely time, and I think you’ll fit in just fine with these--these nerds. I fear my time has come to an end, however, and with that, I take my leave.” 

Finally, the camera hits her face, where she smiles at him like an angel. 

“Thank you, dear, thank the Capitol, until next time!” he says, bowing dramatically like Fizz did, and the crowd offers him a relieved round of applause. 

His lip curls as he stalks off the stage. If they didn’t want him to talk, they shouldn’t have forced him to. _You get what you fucking ask for_ , something in him snarks, and he can’t help the frustration that runs through his veins and makes his palms shake in his pockets. _You get what you fucking ask for._

(When he sits at Kat’s left and she throws her other arm around his shoulder, mumbling into his temple reassurances about his performance, he can’t help but think that maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.) 

**Author's Note:**

> i hate it here  
> sorry if branding is a bit wonky, the column in the fucking spreadsheet is "short idea of branding" and yall really held to that  
> looking at you havok. wtf is "god complex" like bro
> 
> n e wayssssssss get this thing away from me


End file.
